Keep The North Shore Country has filed a lawsuit in Hawaii’s 1st Circuit Court that seeks to require Turtle Bay Resort to properly study the environmental impacts of its proposed expansion plan that would add two new hotels to the resort on Oahu’s North Shore.

Officials with the 88-acre Turtle Bay Resort said in a statement Tuesday that the lawsuit has no merit, “based on all the diligent work that has taken place to complete the SEIS in accordance with the law.”

“We have voluntarily downsized our project by more than 60 percent and provided massive amounts of open space, including 42 acres oceanfront,” the resort said in the statement. “This lawsuit is simply a tactic to delay responsible and balanced development that will protect open areas, create jobs for North Shore residents, and provide new sources of revenue for local businesses and government.”

In a statement provided by Honolulu-based attorney Philip Brown, Keep The North Shore Country alleges Turtle Bay failed to accurately describe the proposed project and that it uses the “full build-out” alternative from 1985 for the purpose of environmental impact comparisons but does not intend to pursue the full build-out, among other things.

Brown told PBN he believes there will be additional lawsuits filed by environmental groups.

“If we learn that they are actually going forward with concrete plans, we’ll have to take further action, like try to get a restraining order of those plans, but we didn’t put that in this motion because we don’t know there are concrete plans moving forward at this time,” Brown said.

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